Dreaming of an Angel
by MFNOmega
Summary: This was created as an experiment in fanfic writing, my first, and in retrospect (having finished "Fallen" at this point) I realize that this is actually rather craptacular. And with that said, enjoy that which made the others possible.
1. Chapter One: Prelude

Author's Note: DoaA is set in the Evangelion universe and does follow (in its early stages) the plot of the first episodes, but I will be taking some liberties with the characters, dialogue, details, etc., so don't throw a hissy fit when some all-important thing like a single line gets changed.  There, I said it.  So sue me.

Now for the people that might actually sue me: don't.  I get no money for this.

--Omega

Narration:            Omega wrote about speech types.

Thought:            'This is an unspoken thought.'

Speech:            "Hi!  I'm a sentence spoken out loud."

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Dreaming of an Angel

Chapter One

            The swings.  They rise up and swoop down, never failing in their rider's quest for glory; even during their lowest point, a new ascent was always waiting.  No wonder he loved them.

            A young Shinji Ikari swung back and forth on the beloved swing set.  The wind billowed into his face, then shifted to a gentle breeze upon his back.  Over and over again the cycle continued.  'It's predictable...' he thought.  'Comforting.'

            "Shinji!" his mother lovingly called to him from a distance.  "Time to go!  You don't want to be late!"

            'Late for what?  But does that really matter?  She only wants what's best.  I know she wouldn't do anything to hurt me.  She loves me.  She cares about me.  She's my mother, of course she does.  When you're family, you're loved.'

            He looked up from tying his shoes, glancing over to Yui Ikari, his mother.  She was standing there with that loving smile on her face, as always.  He could see it in her eyes how much she cared, and he knew she could tell the same of him.  He rose to his feet and began to half-walk, half-run toward her; his four-year-old legs toddled furiously.  Yui opened her arms to receive him into her warm, waiting embrace, but a strange thing happened.  With every step young Shinji took, Yui began to fade.  His pace quickened, and so did her disappearance.  Now nearer to her, Shinji was running at full speed.  He felt something hit his right foot and he tripped.  Landing in a dive at her barely visible feet, he clasped them tightly and looked up.  Tears formed from within and streamed down his face.  His mother was no longer smiling.

            Her ever-cheery expression was gone, and in its place a blank, almost hostile stare sat contemptuously.  Shinji's small mouth dropped open as dread overtook him.  This was not his mother.  Her clothing was different; tightly fitting white material was in its place.  Her skin had changed from a healthy rose tone to a deathly pale white.  Most terrifying of all, her face held within it two crimson orbs staring deep into his soul, surrounded by a watery blue frame of hair.  Those piercing eyes bored deeper and deeper into his mind, and for a moment, Shinji Ikari knew the depths of terror.

            Then suddenly it was gone.  Fourteen-year-old Shinji stared upward, not into some spectral pair of eyes but at the ceiling he still barely knew.  He laid there for what seemed like forever.  Eventually gathering the presence of mind to roll out of bed, he did and landed with a soft thud on the floor of the silent apartment.

            "We're sorry.  Due to the state of special emergency, no lines are currently available.  This is a recording."

            Shinji groaned.  This was not what he needed, not now.  'My first day on the job, and I can't even call in for a ride.  Great.'

            Sensing someone near him, Shinji's glance darted from the pay phone over to the nearby street.  There, standing and staring, was the girl.  The one from his dream.  The one who had made him fear.  A small flock of birds stirred overhead.  Shinji looked up and quickly back again.  His eyes widened.  The girl was gone.

            'That's impossible,' he thought.  'She was just there!  ...Is this another dream?'

            A sudden shockwave rocked the street.  Shinji cried out and ducked apprehensively away from the unseen threat.  After a few seconds had passed without incident, he raised up to his full stature again.  That was when he saw it.  A squadron of military aircraft was fleeing from something hidden to Shinji by local foliage.  A moment later it emerged, all two-hundred feet of it; towering above Tokyo-3, the giant monstrosity known to some as Sachiel lumbered through the streets destroying everything that came into its path.  One of the aircraft lagged behind the others.  The Angel aimed its thin, pointy arm and fired a beam of energy into it.  Seconds later, the destroyed vehicle crashed to the ground, taking out an abandoned car close to Shinji.  Red light streamed from Sachiel's mutated body as his colossal foot stomped into the fallen aircraft.  The fuel tanks ruptured and it blew.  Shinji turned to shield his face from the inferno just as a car pulled up.  It could barely be called pulling up; swerving into a turning stop was more like it.  The passenger door opened by the hand of a woman in her late twenties.  From behind her sunglasses, that grinning mouth opened to ask, "Sorry, were you waiting long?"

            As they drove away, Shinji could still hear the unrelenting barrage of gunfire.  They continued for a few miles in silence.  Shinji looked down at the console between the seats and saw his picture along with a pile of papers and an ID for a Captain Misato Katsuragi.  Information about me?  What's that for?

            He didn't have to wait long to find out.  "Yes, don't worry.  His safety is my top priority."  She was talking into a car phone; not a good idea, based on her previous driving without one.  "Look, can you get a car train ready for us?"  A pause.  "Well, I did volunteer to pick him up, so it's only my duty to make sure he gets there.  See ya."  They drove on into a tunnel.  At the end lay a door with some obscure logo and the word "NERV".

            "NERV?" inquired Shinji.

            "It's a secret organization run by the UN," she replied.

            "And that's where we're going?"

            "Of course.  You do know why you're here, right?"

            His gaze lowered.  "All my teachers told me was that it was important to the future of mankind."

            "And your father?  What'd he say?"

            "My father works here?"

            She sighed.  "You really don't have a clue about this, do you?"

            Shinji resumed looking out the window in silence.

            Several hours and countless wrong turns later, they arrived on foot at an elevator.  Misato's finger had barely finished pressing the button when the doors opened to reveal another woman walking out.  She wore only a swimsuit under an open lab coat.  A tired expression rested on her face.  "Why are you wasting my time, Captain?"

"Sorry, Ritsuko," she replied, bowing.  "This is the third child, according to the Marduk Report.  He should fit the job.  What's our status as of now?"  Their voices trailed off as they began to walk again.

            The three of them entered a huge room and were instantly plunged into darkness.  "Hey!  What's going on?" yelled Shinji.  Seconds later the lights switched back on.  Standing there in front of them was a robotic creature easily as large as the monster from outside Shinji's apartment.  He gave a slight yelp and recoiled in fear.  "Wha-what is that thing?"

            "This is mankind's ultimate fighting machine," said Ritsuko, "the synthetic life form known as Evangelion Unit One.  It is humanity's last hope."

            "Is this my father's work?" asked Shinji.

            A monotonous voice sounded from above.  "Correct.  It's been awhile."

            "Father..."

            "We're moving out.  Prepare Unit One for activation."

            Misato flinched.  "Unit One?  But Rei can't pilot yet, and...wait.  You're going to use him?"

            "Of course."  Ritsuko's face never changed.  "All we need is for him to sit in the plug.  That's all we can ask for.  If anyone has a chance of piloting the Evangelion, we have to take that risk."

            "But...but I can't!" stammered Shinji.  "I don't know anything about it!"

            His father again.  "You will be instructed."

            "You expect me to go out there and fight that giant?  There's no way!  I can't do it...I just can't..."

            That cold voice.  "If you're going to do it, then do it.  If not, then leave."

            "...I just can't..."

            He sighed.  "Fuyutsuki."  A nearby monitor switched on, and the man onscreen turned promptly to face the camera.  "Sir."

            "Wake Rei."

            "Can we use her?"

            "She's not dead yet."

            "...Understood."

            The monitor went blank as the sound switched to another source.  "Rei?"

            A frail female voice answered.  "Yes."

            "Our spare is unusable.  You will do it again."

            "Yes sir."

            Back down at the main deck, next to the Evangelion, Shinji stood hanging his head in shame.  'I knew it.  I'm not needed after all.'  A distant metallic clanking sounded throughout the cavernous room.  Three medical personnel wheeled a stretcher down the hall.  As it passed him, he noticed an IV drip leading past the bandages and tourniquets into...her.  'That same girl.  She's everywhere,' he thought.  Yet this time, he felt no fear, no hate.  A strange sort of sadness seemed to radiate from her, and it was then, in that brief second when their eyes met, that he felt her pain and understood.

            The stretcher stopped a few yards later.  The girl rose to a sitting position and trembled.  Even at a distance, Shinji could tell that every movement was agony, every breath, torture.  Muffled shrieks of pain escaped her tightly-clenched lips.  'She has to feel this...because of me?'

            Around them, the ground shook.  The girl's stretcher overturned, and she collapsed to the floor with a dull thud.  Huge metal beams dislodged themselves from the ceiling and plummeted toward the unsuspecting Shinji.  A sound like the noise made by a wave breaking on the beach exploded outward, followed by resonant clanking of metal.  Shinji looked up from his huddled position to see the unrestrained arm of the Evangelion unmoving, yet shielding him.

            Ritsuko's expression finally changed into one of shock mingled with terror.  "That can't happen! The entry plug wasn't even inserted! That just can't happen!"

            'Was it protecting something?'  thought Misato.  'Protecting him?'

            Shinji rushed over to the near-unconscious girl and cradled her in his arms.  She continued to tremble, crying silently.  He looked to the Evangelion for a moment until her cries returned his gaze.  A warm liquid seeped over his hand.  Raising it up to the light, he saw her blood.

            'I mustn't run away... I mustn't run away... I mustn't run away...'  The thought repeated in his head.  'I mustn't run away... I mustn't run away...'

            "I'll do it!" he cried out.  "I'll pilot the Evangelion."

            The cockpit was different than what he Shinji had expected.  More buttons.  A central console seemed to be the main part of controlling the mech, although out of experience he didn't touch anything he didn't know how to work.  A sensation much akin to immersion in water came to Shinji's attention.  He looked down, saw orange liquid quickly filling the cabin, and panicked.  "Yaaaah!  What is this stuff!?" he yelled before taking a large breath and holding it; the liquid was rising above his head.

            A voice came out of the control panel: "Don't worry.  This is called LCL.  Once your lungs are filled with it your blood will be oxygenated directly."

            Shinji couldn't hold his breath anymore and let it out in one big whoosh.  Thick goop forced its way down his throat.  It felt horrible, but he could breathe.

            Out on the deck, Ritsuko and head technician Maya Ibuki finished checking the data on Shinji and the Evangelion.  She nodded to Misato, who spoke into the microphone.  "All systems go.  Launch Unit One!"

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Hope you enjoyed it.  This is my first fanfic in this format, so go easy on the flaming.  But please, do review it.  I'd like to know how I can improve on my writing.  Plot suggestions are welcome, even if they never get used.  Thanks.

And one last time: Omega get no cash for this, you no sue Omega.

--Omega, Moderator at the www.matrixfans.net Forums


	2. Chapter Two: Convergence

Author's Note:  And now for something completely different.  In this chapter, I decided to expand on the dream link between Rei and Shinji.  As always, review it early and often.

Now, again, for the people that might sue me: don't.  I'm getting no money.

--Omega

Narration:      Omega wrote about speech types.

Thought:        'This is an unspoken thought.'

Speech:          "Hi!  I'm a sentence spoken out loud."

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Dreaming of an Angel

Chapter Two

            Fear.  Shinji knew it far too well.  At this moment in time, it was all he could feel.  The Angel held Unit One in its crashing grasp, slowly wearing through its head.  Through Shinji's head.  Every blast of energy from its hand sent another spasm of pain through Shinji's beaten body.  It struck again and again, and he knew that he wouldn't last much longer.  He was going to die.

            Finally, it happened.  The beam broke through Unit One's head armor and pierced Shinji's mind.  He couldn't see, he couldn't hear; all he felt was the searing pain as it continued to burn.  And then, past the darkness of his blinded eyes, deep inside his mind, he saw her.  He felt her.  As she stood there staring, Shinji could feel the pain being drained away.  Everything seemed to melt into one object, one focus of his attention.  Rei...

            And then suddenly the Angel was gone, and with it the pain.  He was safe again.  The sun streamed in from windows on his left.  Only the birds' chirping punctuated the silence.  Shinji lay unmoving and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling.

            'The sky...it's nice.  Peaceful.  And yet so alone.  Like me.  Like her...'  He stood there by himself watching the clouds float past above and the cars stream by below.  'All of it in silence...always in the empty silence.'

            That vaguely familiar metallic squeaking slowly filled the narrow corridor.  Turning to see whether it really was what he hoped for, he... 'hoped for?  Do I want it to be her?  I don't know, I...I'm so confused.  What is it I really want?  And who really wants me?'

            It was her.  The same three medical personnel, ushering her down the hall; the same stretcher, her same prison.  Some of the bandages were gone.  Her empty expression never wavered as she rolled by, staring.  Although she never said a word, Shinji could see in her eyes a weak flicker of gratitude.  It was almost as if he could hear her still, quiet voice whispering "Thank you."

            The door to Misato's apartment slid open.  She walked in casually, but Shinji paused.  'It was nice of her to let me live here.  I would have been fine alone.  I told them that already.  Besides, living at Nerv, I would have had more chances to see...stop that.  She doesn't want you.  It's foolish to think she would.'

            "Shinji?  Come on in."

            He looked up from his interrupted thoughts.  "I don't...want to intrude..."

            Misato smiled.  "Shinji, this is your home now."

            'Home?  I have a home?  ...Yes.  This is my home.  This is where I belong.'  He stepped cautiously inside.  "I'm...home."

            Her smile widened.  "Welcome home."

            'The warm water felt nice.  It's soothing,' he thought.  'But bad memories always seem to find me in the bath.  Like my father.  And that girl, Rei...  Who is she?  Why is she always so sad?  I guess she could ask the same of me, but she never says anything.  I've never heard her speak at all outside of...the dreams...  But why am I dreaming about her?  I never dream about anyone, except for my mother.'  He leaned back, letting his head rest on the back wall of the tub.  'Is this just a dream, too?'

            Having dried off and dressed for bed, Shinji walked through the hallway to his room.  A crude, hand-made sign adorned the door.  He opened it and entered "Shinji's Lovely Suite."  No matter how often Misato said it was, his room wasn't anything even remotely resembling a suite.  Boxes strewn about, a small bedside table, a floor-set mattress for the bed.  'This place is a dump,' he thought.  'But it's my dump.'  He shut off the lights and switched on his SDAT.  Letting the familiar music carry him off into blissful unconsciousness, he slept.

            Meanwhile, several miles away, pilot Rei Ayanami began her own nighttime ritual.  As she slipped into her inadequately furnished bed, her mind began to wander, just as it always did.  The line between the world and her dreams blurred quickly; she was asleep within minutes.

            'Silence.  Always is the empty silence.  But silence is not so bad if one can still hear through it.  I hear the echoes of silence and of my mind.  Yet tonight, I hear another.  The pilot.  The pilot that sacrificed a normal life for me.  Me, a random girl he barely knows.  Why does he care what happens to me?  I am expendable.  But does he know?  And would that matter?  There is a strange kindness within him, a kindness that I have seldom known.  This kindness, can it be merely because of our jobs?  No.  This is deeper.  Now I see him, here in my world of dreams.  He calls out to me.  He searches for me, and I for him.  So easy it is in dreams, and yet so difficult when we are awake.  The realm of dreams seems preferable to reality.  But then what is real?  And what is real to me?  Ikari.  I will seek him out, and with him the answers for which I thirst.  It is only a matter of time...'

            Shinji woke in a cold sweat.  'What was that?' he thought.  'The dreams are coming more frequently now, and they're still all about one thing.  Ayanami...it was as if she was right here.  I could feel her.  I was...'

            He grasped his head in confusion.  "Shut up," he said aloud.  "That can't happen, that wasn't her, and she doesn't lo--"  He choked on his own words.  "Where did that come from?  Of course she doesn't.  She barely knows you, and you know her even less.  It's impossible and it could never work.  Just give it up."

            Slumping down to his cold pillow, he hid his face under the covers from the harsh green light of his clock.  It read 4:18 a.m., and he needed some real sleep.  Deep sleep wasn't so easy to attain, though, for every time he began to drift off, he would dream.  And every time he dreamed, his subconscious thoughts turned to Rei.  He fought it, and yet he never really knew why.  For the rest of the diminishing night, Shinji endured the hedgehog's dilemma.

            "Shinji!  Rise and shine!"

            Misato's far-too cheery voice hammered at Shinji's barely conscious mind.  'She's been drinking.  No one is ever that happy this early.'  He struggled to lift himself to his feet and, using the bedside table as a crutch, managed to stand.

            Misato popped her smiling face in through the doorway.  "You up?"

            "Mmphmm," he mumbled.

            She laughed.  "Not a morning person, huh?  Well, come on.  I let you sleep in, after all.  You should be doing fine."

            "You what?"  Shinji glanced over to the clock and saw 8:47.  "But...that can't be right."

            "It is.  Get dressed, you're on standby today."

            He paused.  "You want me to go back there again?"

            "Well, of course," she said.  "You're a natural pilot and it shows.  We need you.  Now hurry and get ready."

            As Misato left the room, Shinji remained standing there.  'NERV...needs me?'  It was a foreign concept to him, being needed.  He got dressed and walked out to the door.

            The ride to NERV passed without incident.  A marked departure from the usual morning run, Misato found her way through the maze-like walking tunnels of the Geo-Front without getting lost.  Shinji couldn't have been more greatful for the timing of her amazing feat; he barely had the energy to keep awake for the short route.  When they reached Dr. Akagi's office, Shinji fell into the nearest chair and rested.  Misato gave him a sort of sideways glance and turned to talk to Ritsuko.

            "So, the reactivation experiment is today?" she asked.

            Ritsuko looked up from her computer.  "Yes.  I still say it's too early, but Commander Ikari says we can do it."

            "And what about the pilot?"

            "As usual, she just follows orders."  Ritsuko frowned.  "I wish she'd have more say in her own life."

            Grinning, Misato replied, "sounds like you're the one who wants to get noticed."

            "I'm fine with the duties I have now.  They are enough for me."

            "Okay, Rei."

            Ritsuko sighed.  "Don't call me that.  How's the new pilot?"

            "He's been under a lot of stress.  I don't think he's sleeping much, either."  She looked over at him.  "Well, except for now."

            A small chuckle escaped her usually stoic face.  "Am I that boring?"

            Misato grinned back.  "Of course.  That's what makes you you.  Shinji!  Wake up!"

            He awoke with a jolt.  "Wh--what?"

            The two onlookers laughed.  "Come on, you're on standby.  The least you can do is go out there and watch Rei."

            "Watch Rei?  What's that supposed to mean?"

            Both women exchanged quizzical glances.  "...It means that she's inside Eva Unit Zero.  The activation test is coming up soon.  Didn't you hear me tell you that, or were you too busy daydreaming?"

            "I was..."

            Misato stopped him.  "It's fine, I know you've been tired.  Just go out there and watch the activation.  You might learn something."  Shinji nodded and left.

            "Go ahead, what are you trying to tell me?"

            "What?" Misato responded casually.  "Why is it that you think I'd go to all that trouble just to talk about Shinji behind his back?"

            "Because that's what makes you you.  Also, I never mentioned Shinji."

            Misato blushed.  "Okay, okay.  I just keep wondering...do you think there's something between them?"

            "Who?" she feigned.

            "You know perfectly well who I'm talking about.  I've seen the way he looks at her."

            "Maybe so," continued Ritsuko, "but I don't think that's any of our business.  When the time comes, he'll know what he needs to do.  After all, this is Commander Ikari's son.  I'm sure he'll be fine."

            Shinji was not fine.  As he sat there in the observation deck watching Unit Zero, he started once again to nod off.  The mechanical chatter of the lab technicians seemed to all congeal into a single, annoying hum.  The last thing he remembered hearing with any clarity was a far-off announcement over the speakers: "Commendcing reactivation test."

            It was dark inside Shinji's mind.  No light penetrated the cocoon-like enclosure in which he sat.  All was silence, just as it always was.  And then...light everywhere.  It burst in through the wall, through the floor, illuminating it all.  Patterns began to form within the chaos.  Before him was a seat that stretched for the length of his legs.  Two armrests appeared, but Shinji could already tell of their difference.  These had triggers.  The seat was hardwired into the walls.  It all looked so familiar.  And then it him him: he was inside an entry plug.

            He looked out the canopy and saw the observation deck.  Ritsuko and Misato were watching him.  All the technicians seemed to be fixated on his Eva.  He saw the young woman, the two men, and a boy his age.  The boy looked remarkably like Shinji; the same brown hair and clothing adorned his familiar body.  He was sleeping.  'That's odd,' he thought.  'He's just like me.  Probably dreaming...like me...'  He paused.  'No, he is me.  But if this is a dream, then how am I watching myself back in reality?'  Looking around for clues, he brushed aside an errant lock of his blue hair.

            Every muscle in Shinji's body abruptly froze.  Even as they did, he knew that they weren't really his muscles.  Pivoting his head to the left, Shinji saw himself -- herself -- in the mirror.  The crimson eyes widened at the realization.  In the midst of his confusion, he flet something, a premonition.  Something was going to go wrong.  His glance shot back to his own body, stirring wakefully in the observation bay.  A technician accidentally brushed into his leg and the boy began to wake up.  Rei's eyes closed, and Shinji's opened.  There, apologetically walking away from him, was that same technician.

            "Rei!" shouted Shinji.  Receiving more than a few odd looks, he jumped out of his seat and ran at full speed out of the deck and down the stairs.  The entry door to the cage was down there.  Soon, he would be too.

            Misato and Ritsuko stood staring at the downstairs exit that had so recently been used.  They slowly turned to look at each other.  Not a word passed between them.  They looked back at the door.  It was still swinging open.

            "Primary lock bolts released," announced the head tech.  "...Secondary lock bolts released...primary and secondary retraints disengaged.  Releasing the umbilical bridge."  His eyes stared intently at the control panel in front of him.  "All major restraints disengaged.  Commencing activation."

            Misato's face hardened into a watchful, blank slate.  "Pilot readings are normal...reaching absolute borderline..."  Her eyes narrowed as she whispered, "Come on...work..."

            The piercing shriek of alarms exploded from the speakers.  "No!" yelled Ritsuko.  "Sever the umbilical cable now!  It's going berserk!"

            Inside the cage was madness.  Unit Zero had ripped free of every restraint, trashing them all.  Its massive arms grasped its head as if in some terrible pain.  Bringing its arm back, it began to mercilessly pound the reinforced steel walls around it.  One of the punches crushed through.  Shattered debris rained down to the distant ground.

            Going down the stairs, Shinji heard a sound like a bomb going off above him.  He was more than a little surprised to look up and see a fist the size of a small house retracting from the upper floors.  Dodging the falling beams, he hurried ever farther down.

            "How much more time?" yelled Misato.

            "Forty-one seconds.  We should be able to contain it."

            "Start flooding the chamber with bakelite.  Do it now!"

            "Yes, maam."  The tech opened a glass cover and pressed the button inside.  Thick, red liquid boiled out of holes in the cage walls, but Unit Zero continued its assault unfazed as the panel covering Rei's plug blew off.  "Captain!" he yelled.  "It's going to eject!"

            "No!!" Misato screamed.

            A long, white cylinder fired from the Eva's spinal column.  Bouncing along the ceiling and walls, it began to fall.  All was chaos inside the deck as Rei's entry plug slammed into the floor.

            Right then, Shinji was nearly at the bottom of the stairs.  Although everyone in NERV could hear the deafening impact of Rei's plug hitting the floor, Shinji alone cried out and doubled over.  He fell down half a flight of stairs curled up, grasping his ribs.  "Rei..."  Dragging himself to his feet in an all-too-familiar motion, Shinji half-charged, half-limped into the cage door.  When he saw the devastation inside, he nearly collapsed again.  He charged through the cage, ignoring the bakelite flooding, the warning sirens, and the giant robot frozen above him.  All he could do was call out her name again and again, and run.

            Finally he reached the plug.  Shinji grabbed hold of the handle to open it and prompty recoiled.  His hand was burning, and yet he still didn't care.  "Rei!!"  Enduring the pain of the plug's seething metal, he cranked the hatch until it unlocked and ripped the door open.  "Rei!!"

            Rei Ayanami's sense of hearing slowly returned.  Even before she could see him, she heard Shinji's frantic, tormented screaming.  'He is...calling my name?  ...He is here.  At last.'  Her eyes opened, and as her vision cleared, she saw his terrified face.  'Why is he afraid?'  She blinked, and he smiled a smile of relief.

            "Ayanami...you're...you're alive."  Tears of joy streamed down his face.  "I thought...I thought you were..."  Shinji broke down and sobbed.

            "...I'm sorry."

            He looked up and brushed the tears, which still flowed freely.  "For what?"

            "I caused you to feel...sad."

            "But Rei," he said, "that's not your fault.  I'm...so happy to know that you're alive."  She sat there in awkward silence as he waited.  "Why aren't you happy?"

            After a pause, she replied, "I'm sorry.  I don't know how to act or feel in a situation like this."

            "Just...try smiling, then," he said, as a tear-streaked, broken smile crossed his face.

            Rei opened her mouth as if to say something, but thought better of it.  The corners of her mouth rose slowly, and her face bloomed into a radiant smile.  No words had to be spoken between the two; that same flicker of light within her eyes told Shinji all he needed to know.

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Chapter Three coming soon.


	3. Chapter Three: Eidolon

Author's Note: To all of you following DoaA: thanks.  I needed a good fan following again.  The formatting debacle has been cleared up (thanks to your diligent watch) and I'm finally getting a chance to move in an independent direction with the story.  And yes, I know the time sequence in relation to the series is out of order.  That was intentional, and one step farther in my departure from the original.  Now sit back, relax, and enjoy your flight.

--Omega

Narration:              Omega doubted the viewers' interest.

Thought:                'Do I really believe they're reading this?'

Speech:                 "Hey!  Thanks for reading my intro."

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Dreaming of an Angel

Chapter Three

            Time passes slowly when you're waiting.  So learned Shinji Ikari during the days following "the incident".  That's what NERV's crew had taken to calling the disaster involving a berserk Unit Zero.  No one really wanted to admit to themselves that it was any more than some minimal problem, a mere bump in the road.  After all, no one every really wants to remember something terrible like that.  Not like what happened to Rei.

            She lay there, in another sterile white hospital bed.  They were all the same.  Perhaps it was to lend some sense of familiarity to the room.  Of course, if it succeeded, the patient had been there too long anyway.  All these thoughts crept along the corridors of Shinji's mind as he sat and kept watch over Rei.  'Why am I doing this?  Do I expect something in return for my time?  That's the kind of person I am...I always want something more for me.  I'm terrible.  But I did save her...save her?  All you did was run to her once all the damage had been done!  You didn't do anything!  ...But I couldn't do anything.  How was I supposed to stop that thing?  It was huge!'  He sighed.  'Excuses again.  Pitiful.'

            Shinji's thoughts were cut off by the deafening rustling of Rei's bedsheets.  She shifted to her right side, her face directed at him.  Despite all the hope in the world, her eyes remained closed.  Then all was silence again.  Shinji sunk back into his chair and sighed.  "Always in the empty silence."

            She heard him.  He was thinking about her.  Even here, in her weak, pathetic state, he kept watch.  'Shinji?  Is that you?'  Yet she knew full well that it was.  Why he was here, however, was still a bit of a mystery.  'Shinji...why have you come with me?  It does you no good to be here.  Your presence cannot help my condition.  Still,' she thought, 'it is a pleasant feeling to have someone waiting for you.  Someone who needs you.  And yet strange...people have always used me, but never have they really needed me.  I am expendable.  So I was always taught.  I am a pilot and nothing more.  But if that is true, if I exist only to pilot Unit Zero, then why do I feel the way I do?'

            Through the blurry vision of dreams, she sensed his head droop.  It jerked upward, as if resisting, but slowly descended again.  'Soon he arrives.  So soon...'

            Shinji couldn't take it.  'It's too quiet in here,' he thought.  Looking up to the wall clock, he noticed that visiting hours were nearly over.  'Am I relieved to be free of this place?  Or sad, if it means leaving her here?'  He yawned.  'I'll take a quick nap...it can't hurt anything.'  He relaxed into the padded seat of the chair and closed his eyes.  Once again, she was there.

            "Shinji..."

            His eyes flicked open to a dark room.  "Rei?  You're awake."

            Rei's open eyes gazed into his.  "No.  But neither are you."

            "This is just one of my stupid dreams, then..."

            "No.  This is our dream."  Golden light filtered through the windows behind Shinji and across Rei's prone form.  "We are dreaming together."

            His face remained in a trance-like state of neutrality.  "But how?  That can't happen."

            "Anything can happen within your mind."  Rei's sheets lifted from the hospital bed, gently carried by some unseen force.  They billowed gracefully several feet above her.  Shinji felt his body grow light and lift away from the chair; he effortlessly glided over her.  Leveling himself with her in midair, he hung suspended directly above her elegant form.  They stared into each other's eyes, drinking in their very essence.  An eternity passed, and still they remained in silence; the sheets wafted lazily between and around them.  The distance between the two began to close.  Lost in the moment, Shinji leaned down to kiss her.  Rei's eyes closed in a surrender to emotion, her lips brushed against his...

            "Shinji?"

            His body snapped up to a sitting position and he nurse's hand slid off his shoulder.  Still dazed, Shinji quickly surveyed the room.  There was no warm glow of sunset.  There were no billowing sheets.  There was only Shinji and the attendant waking him to leave Rei's room.  "Shinji Ikari?"

            "Yeah..."  He stumbled to his feet and padded softly across the room, past her bed, to the door.  Once there he turned and gave Rei one last long glance before plodding out into the night.

            Shinji walked out of the hospital doors and into the frigid night.  The moon shone brightly between passes of clouds.  As he made his way through the nearly empty parking lot, his mind wandered again.  'Could that have been real?  Stuff like that never happens to people like me.  Of course it wasn't real.  I've just been spending too much time thinking about her and I dreamed about something that could never happen.  She wasn't dreaming.  I don't even know if she dreams at all.  Besides, I'd have no way to prove whether that really was her or not, not yet.  Maybe when she wakes up I'll ask her.'  A dry laugh of contempt escaped his mouth.  'Me, ask her.  Yeah, that'll happen.  I can barely talk to her at all, let alone ask her about things like this.'  He imagined himself trying.  '"Hey, Rei, I was just wondering, did you by chance happen to have a dream where I flew over to your bed and kissed you?"  I don't know what kind of person she is, but no matter what I'd catch a swift smack to the face for that.  Eh, still...I shouldn't say it can't happen,' he thought sarcastically.  'You know what they say...tis better to have had a weird, unlikely dream about being in love and lost it than to never have had those delusions of grandeur at all.'

            Loud honking brought his thoughts back to where they should have been: staying out of the road.  He dived out of the way as the oncoming car swerved to the opposite side of the street.  The speeding car's driver hurled some hasty insults at the "stupid teenage punk" and zoomed on to wherever he was going in such a hurry.  Picking himself off the ground and wiping the dirt from his clothes, Shinji scurried across the street.  It was only a few blocks from his destination.  'Even I should be able to avoid becoming roadkill for that distance.'

            Misato was there to greet him when Shinji arrived back at his 'home'.  His eyes, staring at what only he could see and remember, never looked up to return her gaze.  "Shinji?  Are you okay?"  She spoke a bit more, but he heard none of it.  It all ran together, just as the world always did when his thoughts turned to Rei.  The door to his room slid shut behind him and he fell into bed.  Unlike most nights, Shinji fell asleep quickly.

            It was cold.  He burrowed unconsciously under his blankets.  Shivering, he tried even as he left the world he knew to block out the icy night.

            It was cold.  Ayanami could sense that from within her medication-induced slumber with no difficulty.  She wanted to hide, to get some sort of warmth from the sheets only partially covering her still body.  Searching her thoughts for something to comfort her, the first thought to appear in her mind was none other than Shinji Ikari.

            'Shinji...can you hear me?'

            Back in Shinji's room, the temperature suddenly rose.  He felt a depression in the mattress and rolled toward it.  His eyes flew open as his hand came to rest upon the unmistakably present bare abdomen of his fellow pilot.  Every muscle tensed; he couldn't move, he couldn't think.  He didn't have to.

            "Shinji."  She rose to sit there, barely inches away.  Her eyes gazed into his and for a time, neither moved.

            "How..." he whispered.

            "A dream," she replied, "as was the time before, at the hospital."  One pale hand brushed against his cheek.  "You're cold."

            "And you."  Shinji reached up to hold her hand.  "Will you be alright?"

            Rei leaned into a slow embrace, half-covering him with her body.  "I...maybe.  You...perhaps.  But us..."

            Overwhelmed, Shinji took hold of her and entered into a passionate kiss.  A million thoughts flashed through his mind, and she felt them too.  For a moment, nothing mattered except this.  This moment, this feeling.  They were together.  They were as one.

            Minutes later they fell 'asleep' in each others arms.  The remainder of the night was by no means cold.


	4. Chapter Four: Ambivalence

Author's Note: Another round of thanks to all who reviewed and/or emailed me about this fic.  With the help of your suggestions and comments, I've been able to turn an overzealous attempt at a first-time fic into something with some real potential.  And now to go exploit that potential.

--Omega

Narration:            Having already read this three times, the viewer grows tired of it.

Thought:            'This is really getting boring.  Should I mention it to him?'

Speech:            "Hey, Omega, this had better be the last time you write this!"

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Dreaming of an Angel

Chapter Four

            The sun poured through the small windows of her room.  It was a beautiful day outside, despite the consistently average condition of her indoor prison.  A small bird landed on the outer windowsill and stared in.  At the sight of the room's only resident moving, it left.

            She inhaled a deep breath of the stale air and sat up.  Though a bit dizzy from the sudden change in alignment, she forced herself away from the bed and then out of it.  Slipping into a hospital gown, she took a step toward the window and gazed out into the world she never knew.  Rei had some catching up to do.

            Shinji's room was dark.  He noticed as soon as his mind left unconsciousness and relayed the message to open his eyes.  A fraction of a second later, those eyes flew open again.  He stared straight up at the ceiling, afraid, no, terrified of what he might see if he rolled over.

            The sound of his door opening caused his already rigid body to tense even further.  Since Misato wasn't on the ceiling Shinji didn't see her, but her voice quickly told him who it was.

            "Good morning, Shinji!  Did you sleep we—"  Her voice broke.  In a confused, accusational voice she asked him, "What's going on?"

            If it was possible, Shinji's expression at that exact moment possessed even more shock and fear than before.  Those amazingly wide eyes still hadn't left that one point on the ceiling, and he had no intention of letting them do so.  'What am I gonna do?  How can I explain this?  There is no explanation for this!  I'm doomed!'

            "I didn't know you wanted a roommate."

            It was all he could do to keep from screaming.  'She's here!  It was real!  What the hell am I going to do!!?'

            "Come on, Pen Pen, you have your own place to crash.  Out you go, come on.  A pile of clothes in the corner is no place for you.  Oh, and Shinji?  You should really get an extra blanket.  It's freezing in here."

            The door shut behind the two of them and Shinji was left alone to stare unblinking, unmoving, at the ceiling.

            "I don't know why I'm doing this," Shinji said aloud.  The streets were oddly deserted, even for this time of day.  He passed across and through them largely without the company of other traffic.  "She's going to think I'm insane.  Or a freak, or something."

            Looking down at the address scrawled onto a crumpled piece of paper, he couldn't help but notice how close it was to his own.  Yet Rei's apartment building, regardless of the proximity to his own home, wasn't in the part of town held in the highest esteem.  Most people avoided it altogether.  Maybe she had planned it that way.

            "You know, I don't have any reason to come here.  No excuse.  She's going to ask me why I came, I know she will.  What am I going to say?  'To find out whether you also have surrealistic, romantic dreams about a relative stranger'?  Yeah, that sounds good.  No weirdness there."

            His doubtful monologue was cut short by the tall shadow of her building.  Shinji stopped to look up.  "It's...really tall.  Well, there goes my stealthy escape route."

            Simultaneously discouraging himself and trudging ever forwards, he made his way into the shabbily furnished lobby.  There was no one there; not a surprise, really.  No one wanted to be.  Shinji checked the address again.  "Fourth floor."  He tried the elevator buttons, but (another startling revelation) they didn't work.  With a sidelong glance back at the square of light that was the front door, Shinji started to climb the stairs.

            'What am I doing here?  So I have a few odd dreams, that doesn't give me the right to just march up to her home and drop in.  I wouldn't want it if she just dropped by my place,' he thought.  'Well...maybe.  Still, have you even thought about what to say, what to do?  I have so many questions, but no answers.  Or maybe that's why I came.  For answers.  For the truth about what's been happening to me.  But why would she know?'

Third floor and rising.  The spiraling, squared staircase rose in such a way that every visitor had to pass through the end of each floor's hallway before going on up.  As Shinji reached the main hall of the floor below Rei's, he stopped.  He tried to will himself to go on, but to no avail.  "...I...I can't do this..."  His rubber legs refused to enter back into the upward-bound stairs and involuntarily began to heavily tread back down to the lobby, and then the street.

            Her eyes watched Shinji as he left the building.  She saw him plod through the streets.  She watched his head lower in defeat.  And she stared, taking in all of him she could, as he disappeared into the distance.  The First Child's hand slid down from the cool glass of her apartment's windows and met the rough wooden panel at its base, where the sun's rays soaked into it.

            'The sun is better for seeing than feeling,' she thought as that hand retreated from the sill.  'But I prefer night anyway.  At night, I sleep.  And in sleep, I dream.  Does he know, I wonder?  Or does he pass it off as just some trivial memory twisted by his subconscious?  I suppose I would too, in his position.  But if so, then why has he come to me?  And yet he left me to remain alone...what drives him away?  Perhaps his fear, fear of rejection.  Or maybe it's far worse...the fear of acceptance.'

            She would return to school tomorrow, and Rei knew that then she could pursue this further then.  A thought struck her quite suddenly.  'How do I...talk to him?  I don't really know how to act in a situation like that.  That phrase sounds familiar...I've said it before.  I don't know how to act in any situation.  Am I such an outcast to have no means of conversation?  I was trained by NERV to pilot, but no one ever taught me to live.  Perhaps...perhaps he can teach me.  Ikari seems to fit in, more than I do, anyway.  I will...'  She pondered the actions to begin tomorrow.  '...I will ask him.  We will talk.  And I will live.'

            Misato's apartment door slammed shut behind a very distraught pilot.  Angry with himself for backing out yet somehow glad that he didn't have to face a situation like that, Shinji strode quickly (and loudly) through the front rooms and into his own.  He fell into the bed and lay there, staring at that same ceiling.

            'All that time for nothing,' he thought.  'What a waste.  I hope no one saw me on my way out.  A long walk through a bad part of town just to run away once I got there...how embarrassing.  What if she saw me?'  He tried to visualize where her apartment would have been within the building.  'Maybe.  But probably not.  That would have been far too convenient.'

            'It was convenient,' thought Rei, 'how he showed up yesterday.  Perhaps I can initiate a conversation around it.'  She sat down in her desk at the window-side corner of the classroom and stared out into the sky.  Most of the other students were already here; Suzuhara and Aida sat next to each other, ogling class representative Horaki; Horaki sat in front, writing up a report for their instructor; their instructor entered the class, telling Suzuhara and Aida to get back to their normal seats.  Always the same.  'But not today.'

            Pilot Ikari rushed through the doorway to take his seat.  His face was red, and he was breathing hard.  Apparently his morning routine was running a bit late.  As he collapsed into his chair, Shinji let his head fall onto his desk, where it stayed for nearly a minute.  Looking up at his teacher, he saw him began yet another lecture on "the financial ramifications of the Second Impact".  'Always the same.'

            The teacher's monotonous voice droned on and on.  Shinji laid his head back down onto his desk, racking his tired brain for something to relieve him of this boredom.  'I hate this.  There's no reason for me to be here.  I know all of this stuff already, and how it really happened.  Just a bunch of lies...and he's been teaching them for weeks.  Does he know?  Of course not.  He actually thinks he's telling us the truth.  Heh, I should be teaching him.'  He sighed as his thoughts turned elsewhere.  'I still can't decide whether or not she saw me.'

            Shinji once again envisioned yesterday's events.  He pictured the deserted lobby, the tall, winding stairs, his nervous breakdown at the third floor, and his subsequent escape.  'Let's see...her room would have been on my right going up, so on the way out...  Ergh, why do I even care?  So what if she saw me?  It's not like she'd ever say anything.'

            'Not out loud, at least.'

            Shinji suddenly became very aware of a familiar presence around him.  'You...how are you doing this?'

            'I am doing nothing.  You are the one who reaches out for me.'

            'How do you know all this?  Why are you inside my head?'

            'For the same reason you are inside mine.  What reason that is, I do not know.  But this is not the first time you have felt it.'

            He mentally blushed, if such an action is possible, remembering the night before last.  Deep down, he knew he had enjoyed it, the company, the closeness to her.  Still, he wondered whether she felt the same.

            'I do.  It was...an enjoyable experience.'

            So now she could read his mind.  Shinji was embarrassed; with all the walls he had built up over the years, having someone suddenly breach them all without any chance to resist was unsettling.

            'It's all right.  I mean you no harm.  I merely wish to understand you, and to have you understand me.  Can you tell me why you did it?  Why you came to my home?'

            Finally finding the "words", Shinji responded in kind.  'I don't know.  Maybe because I thought this might happen.'

            'So you enjoy our meetings, then?'

            'I...yes.  Yes, I do.'  A pause.  'And what about you?'

            'They are unusual, and in some ways unwelcome.'  They both felt Shinji's heart sink.  'But in many more ways, they are of greater value to me than anything I have ever felt in this world.'

            Alone save for each other, they floated in the black void of their minds.  Finally Shinji spoke again.  'How can you sense my thoughts?'

            'It is easy, with practice.  Try to read mine.  Try to see into me, into what I keep out of view.'

            She didn't need to ask twice.  Shinji extended his own consciousness into hers, probing deep into her mind.  Visions became clear to him, pictures frozen in time and seen through Rei's eyes.  He saw the interior of Unit Zero, her apartment...and a blurred figure, reaching in through a bright square of light.  The figure reached in to him, its hands still seething from the heat.  He looked up and saw his own face.

            Delving even deeper now, he saw a tube of orange liquid around him.  A room of those tubes.  There were others inside, but the glass was clouded; their identities remained anonymous.  Deeper...he flinched at the pain of the reactivation test.  Metal walls slammed into him from all sides, battering his body and leaving him broken.  Deeper still, and a far more intense pain enveloped him.  But it was not the searing agony of physical impact, but rather the frozen chill of utter isolation.  Shinji pushed as far as he could go, sensing something near.  Closer, closer...

            He recoiled from the shock.  His head jerked away, hitting some obscure student's books.  Looking around, he saw an emptying classroom.  Apparently the order of class had left, and with it his peers.  Shinji stumbled out in a daze.  Everything seemed like it was a dream now; was he even awake?  But he must be, for the dream was over.

            As Shinji walked home in his trance-like state, only one thing kept playing through his head.  The thing he had found at Ayanami's core.  Just that one little word, and the emotion that had coursed through them both when it was heard.

            'Love...'


	5. Exeunt

Author's Note:

To all of my readers: thank you.  For reading this, for offering your support, for critiquing my work to make me a better writer, for all of it.  Unfortunately, this is the end.  Fourth Impact, if you will.  I could just postpone this, hoping that maybe someday I could return to finish the story.  But it seems increasingly unlikely that such a joyous event will ever occur, and I owe it to you to provide some sort of closure.  I end the Dream in the regret of never being able to finish it properly.  No matter how much I try to prolong it, the end is in sight.  Thus ends the Dream.  Thus I must wake.  Until when next I write, goodbye.  Arigato.

--Omega


End file.
